Ashes to Ashes

There are many places of pilgrimage to David Bowie today. As well as Brixton and New York there is Beckenham, the south-east London suburb where he grew up from the age of six. The first floral tributes have already been laid outside what was the Three Tuns pub - now a branch of pizza chain Zizzi – where in the late 1960s the singer set up the self-styled Beckenham Arts Lab.

Blackstar has been on the turntable this entire week. It truly is a brilliant album

These from the Album...

David Bowie - Lazarus

https:// youtu.be/y-JqH1M4Ya8

David Bowie - Sue (Or In A Season Of Crime)

https:// youtu.be/nFX1y62l9C4

David Bowie - Blackstar - FULL ALBUM 2016

https:// youtu.be/Zk1etr2EF_Y

David Bowie - Heroes

https:// youtu.be/bsYp9q3QNaQ

The Inside Story of David Bowie's Stunning New Album, 'Blackstar'

One Sunday night in the spring of 2014, David Bowie walked into 55 Bar, a 96-year-old jazz joint tucked away on a quiet side street in New York's West Village. A friend, jazz bandleader Maria Schneider, had suggested he check out the night's headliner, a quartet led by saxophonist Donny McCaslin. Bowie grabbed a table near the stage and took in a set of exploratory jazz, then left without speaking to the band. &quot;A server was like, 'Wait, was that David Bowie?'&quot; McCaslin says. &quot;It started dawning on people.&quot;

Ten days later, McCaslin got an email: Bowie wanted him and his drummer Mark Guiliana to join him in the studio. &quot;I thought, 'This is David Bowie, and he chose me, and he's sending me an email?'&quot; McCaslin says. &quot;I tried not to think about it too much. I just wanted to stay in the moment and just do the work [he wanted].&quot; That work, initially, was only one song: the trippy, jazz-infused &quot;Sue (Or in a Season of Crime),&quot; which Bowie released on his 2014 compilation album, Nothing Has Changed.

“We used to call him Garson The Parson in the Spiders, poor love, when he was into Scientology. But it did cause us one or two problems. I was thinking about having him back in the band and the thing that really clinched it was hearing that he was no longer a Scientologist.”— David Bowie, in Q Magazine, 1997 The news this morning of David Bowie’s death to cancer has really unmoored us. We are postponing the story we had planned for today until tomorrow. It can wait.

And about that quote from Bowie. We looked into it a bit. Jazz pianist Mike Garson told an interviewer that he got into Scientology in 1970 and then got the chance to play on a Bowie album in 1972, which turned into an ongoing collaboration until the two went their separate ways in 1975. Garson says he left Scientology in 1982, and the two musicians reunited in the 1990s.

We can’t help getting a chuckle from Bowie’s comment. We didn’t know that we could admire him even more than we already did.

The tributes to Bowie in our comments section started early this morning. We hope you keep them going. We’re still reeling at the news.

A documentary, which takes you on a journey of Bowie's revolutionary career, struggle with his personal life and his achievements and successes. Features interviews with Bowie, Iman his wife, his musical contemporaries including Iggy Pop, Moby and Trent Reznor. Exclusive footage of live performances of the showman's best and music and film to showcase 30 years of his career. Highlights Bowie's interests, passions and involvement with the arts.

Though I appreciated much of Mr. Bowie's early music, I could never have been called a 'fan', was into all sorts of other extraordinary music during those times. I think it was probably his album Station to Station that swayed me, years after my teens, and I still have the LP copy I bought somewhere in my piles of 'goodstuff/junk'. Over the years I have listened to everything he made, and with an older view, have come to understand him as the true genius he was. He spoke to a generation finding itself, and so many more...

RIP Mr. D. Bowie, too young, and a real loss to the world of music. That in his dying days he was able to put together a last album, to me is utterly amazing, and I can have no greater respect for any musician. A fifty year span of music which will stand the tests of time.

“My entire career, I’ve only really worked with the same subject matter. The trousers may change, but the actual words and subjects I’ve always chosen to write with are things to do with isolation, abandonment, fear and anxiety, all of the high points of one’s life.” --David Bowie

...Bowie's longtime friend and collaborator Brian Eno admits that Bowie's death was "a complete surprise," but that the pair's email exchanges take on a new meaning today.

"Over the last few years - with him living in New York and me in London - our connection was by email," Eno says in a statement. "We signed off with invented names: some of his were mr showbiz, milton keynes, rhoda borrocks and the duke of ear.

"I received an email from him seven days ago. It was as funny as always, and as surreal, looping through word games and allusions and all the usual stuff we did," he continues. "It ended with this sentence: 'Thank you for our good times, Brian. they will never rot.' And it was signed 'Dawn.' I realize now he was saying goodbye."

The legendary performer died on Sunday at 69 after quietly battling cancer for 18 months.

Director Johan Renck -- who helmed Bowie's final music videos, "Lazarus" and "Blackstar" -- honored the late star on Monday with a smiling, black-and-white photo of the legendary artist and a poignant caption.

"In July you told me that you were ill. We never directly touched upon it again (apart from when you made morbid jokes). It, obviously, colored our talks on work like a nebulous and devious undercurrent but I wasn't capable of taking it in, so I embraced it all as a note on mortality, a nod on aftermaths, a comment on the concept of legacy. What else could one do?" Renck wrote on Instagram.

"Last night I dreamt that I bumped into you outside some dank building in deep Brooklyn. 'I thought you were dead!?' I blurted out. 'Who told you so?' you said with your infectious smile. 'The world. The world told me so!' You smiled even wider. 'Screw you world!' I bellowed, and we laughed; you bigger than me," he continued. "Well, screw you world."

Though I appreciated much of Mr. Bowie's early music, I could never have been called a 'fan', was into all sorts of other extraordinary music during those times. I think it was probably his album Station to Station that swayed me, years after my teens, and I still have the LP copy I bought somewhere in my piles of 'goodstuff/junk'. Over the years I have listened to everything he made, and with an older view, have come to understand him as the true genius he was. He spoke to a generation finding itself, and so many more...

RIP Mr. D. Bowie, too young, and a real loss to the world of music. That in his dying days he was able to put together a last album, to me is utterly amazing, and I can have no greater respect for any musician. A fifty year span of music which will stand the tests of time.

A poignant and beautifully written obituary from Adam Sweeting of the Guardian.

Artist who blazed a trail of musical trends and pop fashion, reinventing himself, his music and media across many decades

Until the last, David Bowie, who has died of cancer, was still capable of springing surprises. His latest album, Blackstar, appeared on his 69th birthday on 8 January, and showed that his gift for making dramatic statements as well as challenging, disturbing music had not deserted him.

Throughout the 1970s, Bowie was a trailblazer of musical trends and pop fashion. Having been a late-60s mime and cabaret entertainer, he evolved into a singer-songwriter, and a pioneer of glam-rock, then veered into what he called “plastic soul”, before moving to Berlin to create innovative electronic music.

I just listened to his last album. Some of it is very, very good, which is in itself amazing, coming from a fairly old and dying man.

Did you notice the difference between the album version of track - 04 Sue (or in a season of crime) and the official video of the track, RG? .. You'll find the album version is way more punchier. Heavier bass line and kick drum tracks have been beefed up.

David Bowie: Dancing with madness and proselytising the socio- political in art and life.

A longstanding, successful and frequently controversial career spanning more than four decades establishes David Bowie as charged with individual agency. The notion of ‘agency’ here refers particularly to the ‘ability of people, individually and collectively to influence their own lives and the society in which they live’ (Germov and Poole, 2007: 7). That Bowie has influenced many lives is undeniable to his fans.

He has long demonstrated an avid curiosity for the enduring patterns of social life which is reflected in his art. Bowie’s opus contains the elements of ideological narratives around sexual (mis)adventure, expressivity, and; resistance to ‘normative’ behaviour. He requisitions his audiences, through frequently indirect lyrics and images, to critically question sanity, identity and essentially what it means to be ‘us’ and why we are here. Here, in this context, ‘dancing with madness’ assumes an intimate relationship, even if brief, where ideas and emotions come passionately together for the purpose of creative expression much like the intertwining and energetic performance of the partner dance Tango.

As such, ‘dancing’ is argued here to be an appropriate descriptor for how Bowie has engaged with creative cultural forms but not meant to be self-conscious nor indicate superficiality or ignorance. The idea of madness for its part is a theme in many of his compositions, for example the original album cover for The Man Who Sold the World (1971) it depicts an asylum and includes the song ‘All The Madmen’ and Aladdin Sane (1973)—a lad insane--are but two examples. This paper argues that Bowie’s frequently astute contemplations, manifest through his art over a period now spanning more than forty years, continues to draw fans of like mind to his work with the result that he has a legitimate claim to influence and affect.

Bowie long identified with the plight of youth, as in ‘Changes’ (Hunky Dory, 1971) he declared;

‘I hear you: I get you’:

And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They're quite aware of what they're going through

Fan or not, Bowie lived through an interesting era. He vacuumed up memes and sent them on their way again in strangely tasty new flavors. Reviewing his sources and those he influenced is like eating the entire modern world.

A celebration of the career of the musician, whose death from cancer was announced 11th Jan 2016. Bowie's work was the soundtrack to a generation and influenced countless musicians and this features memorable music videos and performances, as well as tributes from friends and fans around the world.

David Bowie's son breaks social media silence to share letter from Palliative Care Physician

Duncan Jones has returned briefly to social media for the first time since his father David Bowie's death to share a "thank you letter" from a palliative care specialist written to the late British musician.

Jones ended his silence to retweet a post by the Marie Curie organization linking to an essay published by Cardiff, Wales-based palliative care consultant Dr Mark Taubert.

"Whilst realization of your death was sinking in during those grey, cold January days of 2016, many of us went on with our day jobs," wrote Taubert. "At the beginning of that week I had a discussion with a hospital patient, facing the end of her life. We discussed your death and your music, and it got us talking about numerous weighty subjects, that are not always straightforward to discuss with someone facing their own demise. In fact, your story became a way for us to communicate very openly about death, something many doctors and nurses struggle to introduce as a topic of conversation."

Taubert went on to thank Bowie for his music, which played a soundtrack to his and the lives of many others. And how Bowie's "gentle death at home" had given strength to others working in palliative care and those facing the last stages of their life.

"Thank you for Lazarus and Blackstar," Taubert added. "I am a palliative care doctor, and what you have done in the time surrounding your death has had a profound effect on me and many people I work with. Your album is strewn with references, hints and allusions. As always, you don't make interpretation all that easy, but perhaps that isn't the point."

"Thank you for Lazarus and Blackstar," Taubert added. "I am a palliative care doctor, and what you have done in the time surrounding your death has had a profound effect on me and many people I work with

Quite. The Blackstar video is hard to watch. It's a very naked and quite uncomfortable look at death. Bowie wrote his own dirge.